A growing chorus of voices denouncing sexist culture is echoing through male-dominated Silicon Valley, knocking a number of Internet industry executives from their perches.
Accusations concerning the lack of women in tech jobs and unfair, or downright crude, treatment endured by some in the industry have simmered for years, occasionally reaching a boil.
Uber Technologies Inc’s chief executive officer Travis Kalanick resigned last month, yielding to pressure from investors seeking to clean up the company’s allegedly toxic corporate culture.
His departure capped a rocky period for the global ridesharing giant, which has been roiled by disturbing reports of cutthroat workplace conditions, harassment and discrimination.
Before Kalanick’s departure, Uber said it had fired 20 people after examining 215 claims of discrimination, harassment, unprofessional behavior and bullying.
In addition, venture capitalist Justin Caldbeck last month took an indefinite leave of absence from Binary Capital LLC in Silicon Valley in the face of allegations he made sexual advances toward female entrepreneurs interested in funding.
“To say I’m sorry about my behavior is a categorical understatement,” Caldbeck said in a statement. “The power dynamic that exists in venture capital is despicably unfair.”
In his statement, Caldbeck referred to the influence gap between male venture capitalists and female entrepreneurs as “frightening,” and called the environment “gender hostile.”
A few days later, tech sector investor Dave McClure confessed to being “a creep” for making “advances towards multiple women in work-related situations, where it was clearly inappropriate.”
“I selfishly took advantage of those situations where I should have known better,” McClure said in an apology posted online. “My behavior was inexcusable and wrong.”
The public apologies came in the wake of a New York Times article in which a dozen women in the technology world denounced what they saw as a culture of harassment, some pointing specifically at McClure or Caldbeck.
“It’s important to expose the type of behavior that’s been reported in the last few weeks, so the community can recognize and address these problems,” Stitch Fix founder and chief executive officer Katrina Lake was quoted as saying in the article.
Katheline Coleman, who came to Silicon Valley from Canada in 2013, told reporters she was struck by how much of a man’s world it was.
“What is apparent now with all recent testimonies from female founders is that there is definitely a blurred line between business meetings and happy hours,” Coleman said, referring to after-work social gatherings that typically involve alcohol.
“These dire happy hours have been a place of choice of rogue VC’s [venture capitalists] and sexual predators,” she said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by